Chapter Text
Hermione resisted the urge to fidget as she waited outside the door to 12 Grimmauld Place. In hindsight she should have popped over to somewhere with a floo and used that, but she had already knocked, so she was stuck waiting. And waiting. Why did she refuse Harry's offer to have a key to the house? She could try Apparating in, but she wasn't sure she was still on the access list. There's no reason to think Harry would have taken her off, but that's not something you want to find out you were wrong about the hard way.
She was about to send Harry a patronus when the door opened. Though rather than berate him for his tardiness, the first words out of Hermione's mouth were "You look like shit." And he did. Just the bags under his eyes made it look like he hadn't slept in a month. "Have you been eating right? Work hasn't been too bad, has-"
"Nice to see you, too," Harry said before he wrapped her into a hug.
Hermione took a moment to enjoy the fact that Harry initiated a hug before saying, "Sorry, I've spent too much time around Americans. American college students." She had just finished her degree in material science and, not to feed into any stereotypes, many engineers lacked some crucial social skills like brain/mouth filters. Still, she had better things to think about, like how good it felt to have Harry's arms around her.
All too soon Harry pulled back. "Come in. Things are messier than usual-"
"The house isn't going to eat me, is it?"
"Oy!" Though judging by the slight smirk on Harry's face he wasn't actually offended. "Unfortunately, since the explosion, things have changed a lot. You're still welcome to stay with me for as long as you want, but you might not want to."
Hermione had chalked up the fact that she hadn't heard much from Harry in the last week to the rather massive explosion in a mixed muggle/magical neighborhood. Basically the only message she had gotten from him was that he was alright, but on the list of people that died were Katie Bell and Alicia Spinnet. She had just assumed that Harry had been so busy with the investigation he didn't have time to send any other word.
"Last I checked, my parents were still practicing home nudism, so, yes, I want to stay here." Picking up the nudist lifestyle was probably the most disturbing consequence of her parents' stay in Australia. It was the one that almost made her wish she had done anything else to keep them safe. It was only almost since it had worked.
Harry made a face. She knew he thought her parents were lovely people both physically and in terms of personality, but he still didn't want to imagine (or see) them naked because they were Hermione's parents. Of course, he also thought that playing up the home nudism thing was their way of subtly punishing Hermione for sending them to Australia in the first place. Hermione disagreed because doing it on purpose wouldn't be nearly as traumatic for her.
Stepping into the house, things didn't seem any messier than normal, and was in fact a great deal better than her first impression of the home the better part of a decade ago. Harry had redecorated when he started Auror training, including getting rid of Walpurga's portrait. The wallpaper and carpet had been replaced and looked fine. There was the faint scent of curry, but it seemed fresh, as if it had been served recently.
"You didn't finally meet a girl, did you?" That would be massively awkward. Historically girls interested in Harry have regarded Hermione as a threat even when they weren't living together. Not to mention the small fact that prior to the explosion and Katie's death, Harry and Katie had been connected romantically in the public eye. They weren't actually dating and actually denied it in interviews several times. They just didn't deny it too hard because Katie had been dating Alicia and didn't want that known to her parents.
"Well, not exactly-"
The sound of running came from the floor above followed by the pounding of feet down the stairs. The source of the sound was revealed to be a little girl.
"Daddy! That's not mummy!" The girl burst into tears.
It took Hermione a few moments to realize who the girl was: Elizabeth Bell, more commonly referred to as Lizzie, at least by Harry. Lizzie Bell was the big reason that no one believed the denials that Harry and Katie weren't involved. For one thing, the girl looked exactly like what you would imagine the spawn of Harry and Katie would be like: a miniature Katie with messy black hair. Though Harry had finally managed to get his hair to look like it was supposed to be messy as a fashion statement as opposed to a bloodline curse.
Harry also took his godfather duties very seriously and part of that was plenty of play dates between Teddy and Lizzie, and to a lesser degree Victoire. Teddy was only a half a year older than Lizzie as compared to a bit more than a full year older than Victoire. But even if it was for the kids, that still meant spending a lot of time with Katie, fueling the rumors.
In the here and now, Harry sent Hermione an apologetic look and picked up the little girl, making soothing noises. Hermione lifted her bag and gestured towards the upstairs. Harry nodded and she went to her room to unpack while Harry tried to calm the girl.
Yes, she had her own room in Grimmauld Place. Due to her parents discovering the joys of nudism she found it much less awkward to stay with Harry when she was in the country. She hardly kept anything here before because, and she would only admit this to herself, it felt kind of creepy while Kreacher was still alive, and she didn't want to explain the change in habit. The old elf had died a couple years ago, the spite that was keeping him alive wearing off after Regulus's death was finally avenged.
Despite having her own room, she had somehow managed to not meet Lizzie until now. Well, it wasn't that strange. In the last four years, she had only been in England for Winter holidays and a week each year between summer and fall terms, which missed Harry's birthday. Between Hermione spending time with her parents and Lizzie spending time with Katie's family, not meeting each other was only somewhat improbable. After all, Lizzie was only Harry's daughter in the rumors.
Being familiar with the room and being the naturally organized type, it didn't take long for her to unpack, though she did make a mental note to redecorate. When Harry had done the renovations, he had chosen mostly reds and golds as a giant middle finger to Sirius' parents. Hermione's bedroom had a dark red wallpaper with golden floral patterns, which was something she put up with when she was using the room for only weeks at a time, but if she was going to be around full time, she wanted something a bit brighter.
She went downstairs to find Lizzie red eyed and "drawing" with crayons. The quotes weren't a commentary on her artistic skill, rather an observation that she was more interested in smashing the crayons against the paper as if she had a grudge against sheet materials than doing any actual art. The red crayon she was using made it look like she was carving bloody gashes in the paper. Harry was on a couch nearby, looking half dead.
"Hey," she said as she settled next to him.
Harry flopped an arm in what was probably intended to be an acknowledgment.
"Has she been here the whole week?"
"Yup…. Well, no. Andi has had her when I had to go into work. But I was babysitting when Polperro happened, which is better than the alternative."
"What about the father?" Last she checked Harry didn't know who the father was and respected Katie's privacy not to press on that point, but he very obviously had a very good reason to do some investigating since then.
Harry's head flopped backwards. "All I know is that he was a Muggleborn, the Snatchers got him and that Katie was rather embarrassed that she slept with him."
"No one else knows who he was?"
"Katie obviously did. Alicia did. I think Fred knew. Mr. and Mrs. Bell did."
Hermione gathered that the last two were also dead as well, though one thing didn't make sense. "Why would she tell Fred?"
Harry snorted. "I believe it came up when she was threatening to geld Fred for spiking the punch at the party."
"Not George?"
"From what I heard, George was the one Fred was trying to get drunk." The twins always did seem to cause more collateral damage when they were trying to prank each other.
"She called you daddy."
"Daddy is daddy!" said the girl fiercely, glancing in the direction of the couch.
"We've been arguing about it for half a year now…, and I think any reasons I had to object went away last week. I signed the custody papers yesterday."
"That seems fast."
"Hmm. I was in Katie's will. It might have been tricky last year before Katie removed Angelina-"
"She removed Angelina? Why?"
"You know how she and George have been off and on again? George had started drinking again at the time."
"Has it been that bad?"
Harry made a half heart hand waggle. "It was pretty bad back then, but he's sober now. Katie just never got around to putting Angelina back on the list. That was also before Lizzie started calling me daddy-"
"Daddy is daddy!"
"I know, Lizzie," Harry sighed. "You can call me daddy." Lizzie's scowl was replaced by a ferocious smile for a moment before she went back to her aggressive art attempt. "Where was I? Oh, right. Even if she was still on the list, I don't think she'd fight me on it now."
Angelina probably wasn't in a particularly good condition after losing two of her best friends. Which reminded Hermione "Did they ever find out what happened in Polperro?"
"This hasn't been released officially yet, but basically there was a muggle drug lab-"
"In Polperro? I know being a village that small wouldn't eliminate drug use, but I can't imagine that a drug lab with enough chemicals to create an explosion that large would have gone unnoticed. The chemical shipments alone would have been conspicuous." She didn't think she could blame knowing how big of an explosion a drug lab would cause on being in America. This was purely a function of being in the presence of geeks who rated explosions in movies on plausibility, and she had the suspicion that transcended nation.
Harry smiled slightly at her verbal discharge. She suspected that her bad habit would have been worth a larger grin if not for the subject matter. "Long story short, from what we can tell, a magical kid got in it, got high and accidental magic combined with chemicals created a fuel air explosion."
"They're not going to be able to blame this on a gas explosion," Hermione said, referring to the Obliviators. "Are you going to get in trouble for telling me?"
"What are they going to do, fire me?"
"Harry!" It wasn't like him to rely on his reputation to shield him like this.
"What? I turned in my resignation right after signing the adoption papers."
"But-?" Hermione had been about to say that he loved his job, but he didn't. He was very good at it, but he kept doing it because he thought he had a duty. Well, apparently, being a single father trumped that.
"You would not believe how much shi- er, trouble Kingsley gave me about leaving before the Polperro mess got cleaned up."
"No, I think I can," Hermione said dryly.
Hermione hated the part of her that was jealous of a four year old girl. Four and a half. Four and three quarters. No, that didn't make things sound any better.
The point was, Harry wouldn't have quit the Aurors for Hermione, despite how much it hurt her every time he got injured even just in training, but he did for Lizzie. Rationally, Hermione understood that Lizzie was a dependent child who had just lost her mother while Hermione was an adult. Lizzie needed Harry in a way that Hermione didn't.
It just drove home the fact that Hermione would never be the most important person in Harry's life. That role was taken and claimed for a good dozen years.
It was stupid, petty and irrational, and Hermione hated being irrational. Harry didn't even know that Hermione wanted to be more than friends. That might have something to do with the fact that Hermione had only very recently admitted it to herself… if last winter counted as very recently. But in terms of how long they had known each other it was a recent development.
Ironically, her last reservation about pursuing Harry had been his rather dangerous job. Oh, he could have easily found something to do as an Auror that didn't involve going into the field, but Harry wasn't suited to desk work or worse, public relations. Hermione almost rolled her eyes at that thought. He probably would have fired more curses in anger if he got put in a PR roll than he did as an active duty Auror.
Though, if he did get put in PR he would have worn the dress uniform more often, and Harry looked damned good in the red formal robes. The eye candy probably wasn't worth the likely chaos.
Dinner had been Molly's shepherd pie. She'd taken to sending Harry food every now and then even before he had gotten custody of Lizzie. Hermione mostly blamed that on needing something to do with her time with the kids all grown. Now that he was officially a father, he said that it had increased in frequency. It was definitely a nostalgic meal, if a bit heavy for Hermione.
Lizzie had ended up wearing half of her food. Harry said that it was probably a cry for attention because she was actually perfectly capable of eating neatly. Hermione wasn't sure if that was more because Katie was gone or because Harry's attentions were being directed at an unfamiliar female. Hermione honestly wasn't sure if the looks Lizzie kept giving her were glares or expressions of curiosity. Teddy had spoiled her for reading emotions of children that age by broadcasting his feelings via hair color.
Hermione had settled in the sitting room, waiting for the food coma to wear off while Harry cleaned Lizzie and attempted to put her to bed. It seemed a bit early to Hermione, but apparently the girl had gotten up early and stubbornly resisted taking a nap all day. In the meantime Hermione enjoyed a glass of apple cider while rereading "Emma." It was actually her least favorite Jane Austen novel, but she needed to cleanse her mind after her roommate, Colleen, made her watch "Clueless" and this was the first chance she had gotten since taking the portkey home.
It was still better than when Colleen made her sit through "Bridget Jones's Diary," which was closest she came to using magic on a muggle during her time at university. Colleen would have made a perfectly lovely cat. Still, at least Colleen appreciated "Pride and Prejudice" even if she thought that "Bridget Jones" was an acceptable adaptation. Harry, in comparison, had found the novel depressing.
So given the source of their meal, she was a bit surprised when Harry sat across from her and said, "I hate to be the one to say this…, but don't be surprised if the Weasleys aren't as friendly as they used to be."
"Don't they remember that Ron is the one who left me?" Hermione huffed. She didn't exactly blame him. Lavender had no one to support her after the Battle of Hogwarts except for Ron and Parvati and Parvati had her own troubles at the time. Ron hadn't technically left Hermione for Lavender, but he didn't think it was appropriate spending so much time with another girl and still dating her. There was something annoying about having spent all the effort making him more responsible and then getting into a situation where the responsible thing being breaking up with her, though she was over it by now.
At the present day, Ron and Lavender were definitely a couple. Two years ago Hermione had to put up with Ron worrying that Lavender was only with him because he helped her out, which was silly, since being there for someone when they're at their lowest is a pretty good reason to fall in love and that mess sixth year never would have happened if they didn't have some chemistry.
"That might be the problem." Harry shrugged. "Lavender has been a bit paranoid that you might still be carrying a torch, and you'll be around full time now, so Ron agreed that he'll stay away."
"I don't know if that's sweet or annoying." Or worrying. Lavender already monopolized a lot of Ron's time. That wasn't jealousy. Hermione had some concerns about unhealthy levels of dependence.
"I'm voting for both. I mean I feel for her. She's had it rough between recovering physically and recovering emotionally. I don't think anyone is going to shun you, but don't expect invitations to Sunday brunch. Fleur and Bill should be around often enough though."
"Oh. Victoire?"
"Yeah. At least she's old enough that play dates make sense."
Hermione rolled her eyes. Harry had complained that some of Teddy's early play dates had just been babies drooling together in the same room. Even after she made him read the child development literature on the topic, he still didn't see the point. He dutifully followed the guidelines on socialization, but complained that it didn't seem to make any of the sprogs happy.
They sat in comfortable silence for a while before Harry said, "It's nice having you around."
"It's nice being home." A beat. "Though maybe you should redecorate with brighter colors."
Harry groaned. "You were the one who told me that my original choices were too bright."
"For a red. Harry, the paint you originally chose looked like fresh, wet arterial blood covering the wall."
He shuddered. "Now that I've had first aid training that sounds pretty bad."
"Maybe some nice pastels?"
"I don't want to live inside an Easter Egg, Hermione," he said as he stood up and walked behind her. "Though that might annoy Walpurga as much as the Gryffindor scheme."
"What are you doing?"
"Your neck and shoulders look very stiff. Shift over so I can give you a massage."
Hermione wished that Harry had an ulterior motive for putting his hands on her and wasn't just being a good friend. "My roommate had odd ideas of getting adjusted to the time difference. We fell asleep doing a movie marathon and I was not in a good sleeping position."
She didn't really notice what Harry said in response to that because he really did have magic hands.
Hermione's new job wouldn't start for a couple of weeks, so she mostly spent time with Harry at home. She wasn't much for going out under normal circumstances and most of her friends were gainfully employed. The obvious exception was Harry, and Luna was also a bit of a question mark as Hermione wasn't clear on how funding was handled with Magizoological expeditions. Either way, Luna was in South America and wouldn't be back for another month at least.
Today Harry had taken Teddy out to watch a junior Quidditch game. It was an event that had been scheduled before Polperro happened and he had gotten custody of Lizzie. It was something he would have felt bad about changing his plans for as Andromeda was working as a legal researcher. She was able to do most of her work from home, but she had wanted the opportunity to go into the office to take care of some of the bits that she couldn't do remotely.
Lizzie didn't like Quidditch and Hermione didn't mind watching her for the couple of hours that the game would take. (Unlike professional rules, the junior league games had a fixed time limit.) Harry's hurried explanation of why Lizzie disliked Quidditch involved some bitterness on Katie's behalf that she couldn't go professional because of Lizzie. Lizzie only knew that her mummy didn't like reading or hearing about the game and picked up the attitude without understanding the reason.
Hermione was giving Lizzie some vegetable sticks when the child said, "Daddy likes me better than you." She said this in a very serious tone, though the impact was taken away a bit by the way her legs swung from the chair that was too large for her.
Hermione just did not know what to do with that statement. Okay, this was a four year old, so this kind of taunt was… normal? Probably? On the plus side, her previous assessment that some of her classmates acted like four year olds was being borne out, so that was good… or bad, depending on how you looked at it.
"Harry likes us in different ways. You're his little girl and I went to school with him."
"Oh. What's school like?" Lizzie put a celery stick in her mouth and looked at Hermione expectantly.
Hermione was glad that Lizzie's ability to stay on topic was also at the level of a four year old. Was that worrying because she was almost five? Was there an actual difference? Hermione's only metric was five year old Teddy, but then again, not staying on topic was probably better than a hyper focused obsession with dinosaurs. Hermione still wasn't sure how the two children were best friends. Part of it could be simple proximity, but they honestly seemed to enjoy spending time with each other. She didn't get it, but with hindsight she also wasn't sure how she managed to stay friends with Ron throughout school either. It made sense at the time and she might remember now if the prat wasn't avoiding her at the moment.
"Well, Hogwarts is a castle. The first time you go there as a student you ride a boat on the lake…."
That evening Hermione had decided to review her research proposal. The Ministry had accepted half of it: the use of material science techniques to develop truly permanent transfigurations. Granted, that was a misnomer since what Hermione had in mind was closer to a charm than a transfiguration, but when selling a proposal details like that were less important. They were less enthused about her follow up proposal to use the permanent transfiguration techniques to manufacture exotic materials for muggles. They didn't see the value in generating good will with the muggle government, but from what Shack had said about the what had happened during the war-
Her thought process was interrupted by Harry walking into the library. "When I dropped Teddy off, I talked with Andi and she's going to be dropping off Teddy during the day from now on."
Hermione shook her head. "I still can't believe she's managed to watch him by herself for so long."
Harry shrugged. "She can do most of her work from home, and she managed to keep Tonks in line. I'm sure Teddy is an angel in comparison. She's said as much. Repeatedly."
"I suppose that is an accomplishment." She theorized there were some magics for child care and monitoring that didn't get taught in school, much in the same way that muggle schools didn't bother teaching what Colleen termed "life hacks." (There could be a reason for that, since the only one that stuck in her head was how to use the lines on those red plastic party cups to measure alcohol servings.)
"You're sure you don't have any problem with this?" The look on Harry's face was almost exactly the same when he asked if she was sure she wanted to go on the horcrux hunt with him.
The idea of Teddy being on the same scale as their camping trip from hell made her smile slightly. "Even if it is an issue, I'll be starting work soon enough."
"You're the greatest," Harry said before giving her a quick hug.
Harry was a lot more free with physical affection, which made it harder for Hermione to resent Lizzie. Especially since when he initiated hugs while she was sitting like she was now, she could return the hug and maybe get a feel of his bum while making it seem natural.
Her two theories about why Harry was more free with his hugs were that he was just in the habit of hugging now that he had two kids to look after, even if Teddy was only part time (though with this news, getting closer to full time now), or he was just so sleep deprived that he forgot to be nervous about initiating contact.
Considering what happened at dinner with the pork chops later that night, Hermione was leaning more towards the second theory.
Hermione hadn't been looking forward to her first dinner with her parents since she got back. They had at least agreed to a restaurant so there was no question of eating in the buff. It was even a nice Italian restaurant and not one of the weird fusion places her parents had been trying out for the past few years. No, the problem was that Hermione had been distracted the last time she called home and admitted to her mother that she had been planning on just maybe pursuing Harry romantically when she got back to England. She blamed Colleen and her techniques for preparing for jet lag.
"Honestly, Hermione, nothing is going to happen unless you put yourself forward." Thank you, mother, for reminding her why Hermione hadn't shared information about her romantic interests back when she was in school until that last mistake.
"I'm aware of that, mother." Hermione stabbed her salad roughly with her fork. "I was going to mention something last night, but we had pork chops."
"Truly a romance killer," muttered her father dryly.
"Not like that dad. Harry… well, he cut Lizzie's pork chop into bite sized pieces for her. Then, well, he must be used to having both Lizzie and Teddy around, because he turned and started doing the same thing for me."
Her dad tried to keep the laugh in; he really did. That just led to the waiter coming over to see if he was having an attack or not, which was his cue to let it out.
After they waved the waiter off, Hermione continued, "As I was saying, he was so mortified, he probably would have died from embarrassment if I tried having a talk with him."
"Well, it could be worse. Did I tell you about the first time that your mother and I went dancing?"
Hermione groaned. "Yes. Repeatedly." And if it had happened to her she would never have mentioned it again, not brought it out at the slightest provocation to embarrass her daughter by proxy.
Her mum smirked over her glass of red wine, but changed the subject. "Was the look on Harry's face when he realized what he was doing funny?"
Hermione smirked back. "Hilarious. It was like there was a clock ticking above his head. He could tell something was wrong and every tick made that feeling a little stronger. Then the alarm rang and he dropped his fork and knife and jumped back. Lizzie lectured him for a bit on his clumsiness."
Her dad laughed. "You did the same thing to me all the time."
Hermione sniffed. "I'm sure you deserved it."
"You still don't have an owl? I suppose I should send Ginny a patro-" Hermione gasped as Harry snatched her wand out of her hand. "Harry James Potter!" she whisper-shouted, not wanting to wake Lizzie.
"Trust me. I'm doing you a favor. You do not want to remind Ginny you exist right now."
Hermione bit her bottom lip. "This isn't like Ron and Lavender is it?"
Harry shook his head. "Does the term bridezilla mean anything to you? Be very glad that you have an excuse to avoid her right now."
She flinched. "Not existing to Ginny right now sounds like a good idea." One of the grad students at school last year had been marrying a bridezilla and despite not being anywhere near the same social circles, Hermione still heard regular horror stories. Colleen took particular delight in relaying the drama, though she treated it as a comedy. There were days when Hermione wondered why she roomed with her for all four years.
"Word to your mother," Harry intoned solemnly.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Your attempts at Americanisms are almost literally physically painful… and I think potentially racist."
"Really?"
Hermione shrugged. "I'm not entirely clear. I didn't pay much attention to pop culture when I was in school." Adjusting to American academic culture had been hard enough after living mostly in the British magical culture. Trying to figure out the various racial subcultures in America wasn't something she had time to do on top of her studies.
"Huh. I thought your letters said something about movie nights."
"Movie nights with engineers. I absorbed trivia like why the USS Enterprise could defeat a Star Destroyer."
"Really? Wasn't the Enterprise an exploration vessel?"
Hermione sighed. Of course she had to bring up the one argument that Harry would be able to understand the basics of. Normally his lack of knowledge about entertainment was quite reliable and the last thing she wanted was to go over this same argument again. "To summarize, even the original Enterprise out ranges Star Destroyers."
"That sounds like there's a story there."
"Not really a story, just Star Trek nerds arguing with Star Wars nerds over and over again."
"Better than listening to Ginny arguing about the exact shade of red she wants for the buntings. I didn't even know what buntings were this time last year! Don't get me started on the china patterns. Better yet, don't get her started."
"Uh huh. Now about this business where you grabbed my wand…."
"You could spank me," Harry said hopefully. At least it would have sounded hopeful to anyone who didn't know him as well as she did.
Hermione fixed him with a glare. "You can't kink bluff me, Harry." Especially since she'd seen him try this on Ron before. She did have to admit that Ron's reaction had been hilarious before he figured it out.
"Right. Apology back rub?"
"That's a start." Hermione sighed. Not spotting a good chair to sit in for him to give her a backrub, she moved towards the dining room. Harry didn't need an explanation as he followed her. "Part of me is surprised she and Neville lasted this long. She never really seemed proud that they were together."
Harry shrugged as he rolled up his sleeves. "Well, there was that expectation that she and I would get back together. But it could be worse. She did such a bad job leading up to it-"
"That she made it sound like she threw you over for Malfoy. Yes, you've mentioned this a few times."
"It's a good story."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "The first or second time."